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Revelation War: The Coming Struggle for the Middle East. If America continues its zigzag withdraw from imperium, there will be vast repercussions. In and around Israel, the international security guarantees put in place there with the 1978 Camp David Accords will effectively be gone.

This near-future what-if wargame investigates that Israeli worst-case scenario. Left on their own in that way, they must fight to a defeat a coalition of Hezbollah, Hamas, Russia, China, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iran and Turkey – and they must try to win without resorting to the use of atomic weapons or other WMD. Cynically, the Anti-Israel Coalition player “wins” by doing well enough on the conventional battlefield to force the Israelis to go atomic.

The game isn’t meant as a staging of the Biblical prophesies in the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation. Even so, the overlap between those prophesies and the potential strategic situation being modeled here are numerous and clear. We’ve therefore included a set of 15 iconic counters, each depicting a character or scene from those Biblical “end times” descriptions. Players can incorporate into the game in any ways that best suit their own religious outlooks and predilections.

Revelation War uses a division-, corps- and army-level system that’s easy to learn and that can be adapted for solitaire play (though it’s intended for two). There’s a large-hex 34x22” map covering all of Israel in its center while stretching north to Damascus and Sidon, east to Amman and west to Cairo, at 7.5 miles per hex. Each of the turns represent one day of actual time.There’s one full sheet of 176 large-size (5/8”) die-cut unit-counters.

The game is playable by one or two people in one sitting of no more than about two to three hours. Special rules are included to cover airpower and cyberwar.

Designed by Ty Bomba.

Game Map

Counters

Upon making the $6000.00 goal with no stretch goals, the game will be produced as a folio game, with maps, counter sheets, and rules shipped in a pocket folio and placed inside a zip-lock bag. (Please note that shipping costs are based upon making Stretch Goal 3. See note about shipping costs, below.)

Not convinced? You can check out the rules by downloading a PDF of them right here.

Example of Play

Background

Operational mobility is key to Israeli success in the game; however, the typical kinds of rules traditionally used to allow for it, commonly called “mobile assault” or “overrun,” etc., are intentionally missing from the rules. Instead, the Israeli player must use the capabilities granted him by the technologies of today’s “4th Industrial Revolution,” particularly the ability of cyberwarfare to enhance his army’s movement and combat capabilities, to match and go beyond old 20th century ideas about mobile warfare.

Situation

In this game, the Anti-Israel Coalition (AIC) player has decided to try for a sudden death victory by massing all his Egyptian, Iranian, and Russian forces in the extreme south in order to try for a quick capture of the Israeli border city of Eilat. (Note to AIC players: that’s usually a mistake against a wary and capable Israeli commander.)

For his part, the Israeli player has decided the deployment of the Jordanian Army, along with his own acquisition of eight Cyberwar (CW) points that turn, will allow for a speedy and relatively bloodless capture of Amman, thereby knocking Jordan and its armed forces entirely out of the war and giving him his first victory point. (That idea has been reinforced in the Israeli player’s mind because it seems obvious to him, due to the illustrated Jordanian deployments, the AIC player has no real understanding of the Cyberwar and Momentum Attack rules.)

After the AIC player resolves his first attack on the Eilat front, the Israeli player uses one of his CW points to interpose one of his own attacks inside his opponent’s combat phase. He announces that interruption and expends one CW point to have his Armored Corps execute a probing attack and advance into hex 3611.

The AIC player continues with another attack toward Eilat in the far south, immediately after which the Israeli interrupts him again to expend another CW point to empower his 252nd Reserve Armor Division to conduct a probing attack and advance into hex 3613.

As the AIC player continues to doggedly and repeatedly try further attacks in the south, the Israeli interrupts after each one with other CW-empowered probing attacks by the Armored Corps into hex 3711 and then 3812, and by the 252nd into hex 3713 and then 3813.

Panicking, the AIC player continues attacking in the south, hoping to capture Eilat and end the game before what he now sees will be his opponent’s next move.

The Israeli player finally uses his last two CW points to empower both the Armored Corps and 252nd to make a joint conventional attack into Amman, where they eliminate the Jordanian defender, advance after combat and thereby knock Jordan and its entire remaining military out of the war.

Stretch Goals

Our stretch goals will be based upon increasing the quality of the game components. We will not be creating wacky non-sense add-ons that add little to game play, but much complication and delay to production and shipping.Thus....

Stretch Goal 1 ($8,000): Old-School Scenario Set-up Sheets

Remember when games had sheets that showed the counter OBs and their setup locations, as well as all the reinforcements and special rules? Well, at this funding level we're going to do that rather than just put a list in the back of the rule book.

Stretch Goal 2 ($10000): Game Box and Dice

Upon reaching this stretch goal we will produce the game with a box rather than as a folio. This will be a full-sized, standard game box.

Stretch Goal 3 ($15,000): Mounted Map

At this funding level, we will ADD mounted maps, giving you the highest quality gaming experience we can provide. (But if you absolutely gotta have paper, you've got that too.)

Stretch Goal 4 ($30,000): Super-Size Me!

At this funding level, we will super-size the game, adding 2 paper map sheets that blow-up the playing surface to twice it's size and add two counter-sheets of 1-inch counters for the ultimate in ergonomic game play!

Why Support Us on Kickstarter?

We don't do gimmicks to get you to support our Kickstarter projects; no exclusive items, none of that with one exception: those who support us through Kickstarter (and only those) will receive a certificate with their game signed by the design team. You may ask, why should I pledge via Kickstarter when I can probably buy the game through some discounter after the game is released? Because Canvas Temple Publishing products will not be distributed to any retailer (except for European fulfillment). That's right. We will only print enough copies to satisfy Kickstarter orders, plus some extra for direct sale via our website at full MSRP (for those who miss the Kickstarter campaign). So if you want the game at a discount, this is your chance. We don't plan to keep a lot of inventory around, so once they're gone, that's it.

Time Line for Publication

We are expecting the game to be ready to ship by February of 2019. The current state of the game is:

There are many things that could happen to delay that, but we have built in some cushion. If things go swimmingly (and why shouldn't they?) we might even have the game delivered early. But as all of us old codgers know, Murphy always rides in your pocket.

A Note About Shipping Costs

Our shipping calculations are based upon meeting stretch goals and what the projected weight of the game would be once they are met. If we based the shipping calculations on the base game build, we would simply not be able to pay the shipping costs if stretch goals were met. That is simply unavoidable.

As mentioned above, CTP Games are not being distributed; but sold directly from us. As a result, we ship everything directly from our warehouse (except to one EU fulfillment house, who will fulfill EU orders).

US shipping is based upon medium flat rate shipping.

Our international shipping price is based upon a 4 pound package (what we estimated the game would weigh if it had mounted components in a box) to non-EU overseas destinations. The USPS charge for that at the time of this writing is $52.75 first class international. We are charging slightly less than that.

EU shipping is based upon calculating the following 4 items:
1. Cost to bulk ship EU orders to the EU
2. Per unit VAT fee for that shipment
3. Per unit shipping fee of European fulfillment house
4. Actual European postage based upon a four pound package

In estimating the numbers, this adds up to $34.

We understand that other companies charge lower shipping amounts in their Kickstarter campaigns. After researching that, we found that they are doing this by amortizing that cost in the price of the game itself. We thought about doing that as well, but two factors stopped us. The first is that what is going to happen in a KS campaign is unknown, and each scenario we looked at had risk over certain number ranges. Because we are essentially a micro operation, we do not care much for risk. However, we also simply felt it was unfair to others to make them subsidize shipping costs that are not their fault. And that is why the shipping costs are what they are.

Risks and challenges

This is our third Kickstarter project as Canvas Temple Publishing, but as individuals we have almost a century of combined board game publishing experience. The company founder, Jon Compton, has been in the professional wargame publishing business since the mid-1990's having gotten his professional start as the General Manager of 3W Inc. He has already successfully completed and fulfilled four Kickstarter projects through One Small Step. Ty Bomba and Joseph Miranda both have resumes that speak for themselves, having been editors of Strategy and Tactics and Command Magazines, and both having published games numbering in the hundreds. We have experienced just about every possible way a project can go wrong and we have overcome it. This project will be no exception.